FOR THE LOVE OF CACTI

After looking through the sketchbook I kept on my semester abroad, I was inspired to pour through my photo albums. Man, there are a lot of photographs.

The picture above was taken in Spain, which was part of my travel itinerary with friends after we finished our studies in Cortona. I fell in love with the Spanish landscape--and people and food and culture--and was especially taken by all of the gigantic cacti that dot the countryside. This cactus is inside the walls of the Alhambra in Granada. If you look closely, you can see my hennaed head poking out from behind a few of the leaves.

I studied printmaking and book arts while in Cortona and made quite a lot of work. But when I returned to Baltimore, I was even more inspired. The Spanish landscape cropped up in lots of my imagery. The print pictured here is a small hand-painted lithograph I did after my return to Baltimore, and it was inspired directly by that cactus at the Alhambra. You can see a few more of my cactus prints right here.

I'm still wooed by cacti. There's a wild one that grows in the back of our acreage. We found it once, but it's eluded us for a while now. And there's a neighbor down the road who has quite a large cactus in his front yard. Still, I'd love to see those Spanish cacti again.